Combinatorial methods, automated synthesis and high-throughput screening in polymer research: The evolution continues

For speeding-up preparation as well as investigating new polymeric materials, combinatorial techniques, parallel experimentation, and high-throughput screening methods represent a very promising approach in polymer chemistry a large variety of parameters can be screened simultaneously resulting in new structure - property relationships. As previously described, polymer chemistry seems to be perfectly suited for combinatorial approaches since it is relatively easy to vary many parameters during the synthesis, processing, blending, or compounding. Moreover, the development and application of high-throughput screening techniques for polymer properties can accelerate the development of new materials and can result in new structure - property relationships. Therefore, these screening tools, together with parallel preparation techniques, will significantly decrease the time to market of new products. Here we provide an update of our recent overview covering new developments in the field of combinatorial and parallel polymer synthesis and high-throughput screening.